Objective：To investigate the safety and clinical practice of a modified total thyroidectomy technique. Methods：The clinical data of 62 patients undergoing total thyroidectomy with the modified technique which comprised a series of improvements including vascular management of “vessel skeletonized-carryover coagulation-vessel block”, meticulous capsular dissection and en bloc excision (group A), from May 2009 to December 2010, were retrospectively analyzed. The other 81 patients undergoing the traditional total thyroidectomy from January 2005 to April 2009 were used as a control group (group B). The incidence of postoperative complications including temporary and permanent hypocalcemia, temporary and permanent vocal cord paralysis were compared between the two groups. Results：No permanent hypoparathyroidism or permanent recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy occurred and the incidence rates of temporary hypocalcemia and temporary vocal cord paralysis were 4.8% and 3.2% in group A, which were significantly lower than those in group B (14.8%, 13.6%, respectively) (χ2 =5.341, P=0.021; χ2 =2.346, P=0.033). Conclusions：Total thyroidectomy by modified procedure is safe and reliable compared with traditional total thyroidectomy.